Wires, Shuriken, and Curses
by alescA Munroe
Summary: In which Izumo and Kotetsu make gennin and attempt to best a jounin. He sees the two gennin and is not at all impressed, but they don’t seem too thrilled to see him either.


Disclaimer: I don't own _Naruto_ or any of its characters. Their jouin-sensei Kyouji is my own creation.

Author's Notes: I thought it would be interesting to see Gennin!Kotetsu and Gennin!Izumo from the eyes of someone else. Count yourself lucky, I decided to give the man a name after all, and use quotation marks. Can you imagine what this fic would've looked like if I just used 'he' all the time instead of giving their sensei a name?  
It would've been my favourite kind of nightmare.

O0o0o0o0O

He sees the two gennin and is not at all impressed, but they don't seem too thrilled to see him either. "Names and specialties," he barks out and hides a grin when they flinch. Early graduates may mean that they're far above their peers, but it also means that they're still children who haven't even hit a growth spurt yet.

"Kamizuki Izumo," the one with the bandana says after a pause. His file shows that he has a particularly foul mouth for anyone younger than fifteen and a temper to match. It's almost expected from someone from the small psychic clan. "Binding circles."

The man knows about the binding circles, the boy's aunt was in his gennin team. He doesn't say this, though, and turns to the spiky haired boy, Izumo's partner in crime.

"Hagane Kotetsu" is the easy response. The narrow-eyed boy is more laid back, but just as much of a prankster as Izumo. His parents are two of the better-known weapon smiths in the village. "Weapons and metal-working are my specialties."

The jounin gives a smirk learned in T&I classes before ordering them to do five laps around the village, knowing full well that Konoha is one of the larger shinobi villages and that today is supposed to be the hottest day of the year. Izumo sputters and curses a blue streak, but starts running anyway at a nudge from his fellow eight year old. Their teacher jogs along behind them, if only to taunt them mercilessly.

Halfway through the third lap, Kotetsu interrupts Izumo's graphic description of just how he's going to kill their sensei and asks what the man's name is. Said man makes a comment on how the village's standards have fallen drastically if their early graduates are so naïve as to follow the instructions of a ninja who may very well be from Hidden Cloud.

Izumo retorts something about how he would know if the man was dangerous since he's the best psychic his clan has seen in generations, but it's hard to tell with all the offensive words he inserts in his sentences. The man adds another couple of laps before giving his name. "Kyouji," he says. "I'm your jounin-babysitter."

Izumo demands to know Kyouji's surname, and Kyouji knows while Izumo may seem like a bratty little clan heir, the boy can find out more than just a little about him from the family name alone. Kotetsu is better at hiding his sadism, but his eyes narrow just a little more, until they're barely slits.

"Sorry kids, not telling," Kyouji answers, unrepentant. He continues, "While given names are more personal, more familiar, family names denote affiliation, attachment that can potentially be used against you."

"Forehead protectors 'denote affiliation'," Izumo retorts, mocking his sensei's choice of words. For that, the number of laps is doubled, as are the boy's curses.

"Your attachment to the Leaf is the only one you should have." Kyouji's voice is sharp as he drills this lesson into their heads. "Once you put that forehead protector on, your life is not your own. You have no other attachments; nothing means more to you than the orders of the Hokage. You are a tool of your village."

The boys are silent for the rest of the run.

O0o0o0o0O

Despite what everyone, including Yondaime, expects, Kyouji does not send the two back to the Academy. The boys have yet to call him 'sensei' and he has yet to label them anything besides 'hey you'. That's fine by Kyouji, he plans on failing them today anyway.

He isn't a very good tool, he knows, because tools don't question the judgment of their users, don't allow for other tools to obtain anything their user doesn't wish for them to obtain. Yondaime had wanted Izumo, Kotetsu, and Mitarashi Anko to be on one team, and it is partially Jiraiya's, and mostly Kyouji's, fault that Orochimaru has only one student instead of all three. After yesterday, the ash blond man wouldn't wish all three of those hellions on anybody, least of all his jounin mentor.

Kyouji meets his team at the ungodly hour of four in the morning, and tells the two they will be shipped back to the Academy if they do not manage to beat him. Up until this point, he hasn't seen them fight, and they still have no idea as to what his specialty is, so he figures this will be an interesting experience to say the least. "Oh yeah," Kyouji adds as an afterthought, "The girl who graduated with you, Mitarashi-san. She's already proven herself to Orochimaru-san, so if you lose, well…" He leaves the rest to their imaginations and disappears from sight.

His first and worst mistake is not separating the two gennin. The Academy instructor failed to mention that the two work best _in tandem_. Kyouji discovers this when they finally catch up to him at the other end of the training field. Kotetsu has an affinity for blast notes, and threw three into the tree where their sensei was hiding. Izumo follows it up with a binding circle that only misses because the boy misjudged the size needed. Kyouji strings them up with a basic trap, just for that.

For the next two hours, it is a game of cat and mouse. The two attack in sync, and Kyouji catches them in wire traps. Kyouji never actually leaves his hiding place after they blew up his first one. He can now tell Yondaime that they're not as hopeless as he thought, since they're not blind, but that's not grounds enough for him to keep them-

And now he can't move and Kyouji sees the kind of circle binding him to one place-the generic circle that doesn't allow movement and is not connected to the user, excellent for him- and this would be amusing as all hell, the idea of a gennin besting a jounin, except Kotetsu is only a few yards away and aiming a fistful of shuriken _at his face_. Kyouji shoves chakra into the circle the way he did so many years ago when he faced the boy's aunt in the chuunin exams and catches them in a wire trap so complicated even Orochimaru admits to himself from nearby that he would have some trouble getting out of it (providing the snake-summoner was ever trapped, a highly unlikely idea).

After Izumo is done yelling himself hoarse ("You could've gotten your _legs_ blown up, are you _insane_?!") and Kotetsu finally gives up trying to reach his last scroll, Kyouji releases the two from the trap. Kotetsu hauls Izumo into a standing position, and the two look seriously up at the jounin. Finally, Izumo snorts and says, "I guess you win this time, Kyouji-sensei."

"I guess I do," Kyouji agrees, winding up his wires-Kotetsu's eyes widen at the sheer number and length of them that were laid out over the _entire_ _field_- with a few practiced motions. "Come with me, Izumo-san, Kotetsu-san."

Kyouji tells them they passed the test as he buys them ice cream-and it's amusing to him that even though the two are years ahead of their peer in terms of shinobi skills, they can still be placated with _ice cream_, of all things- but that it's not going to be fun or easy or very heroic most of the time. They are tools of the village, he reminds them sternly, and sometimes that requires them to do underhanded things.

But now the boys aren't listening, instead nursing headaches from eating their ice cream too fast. Kyouji thumps them both on the heads, calls them the devil's duo, and tells them to start running. Izumo curses and even Kotetsu adds his two cents this time, but they do as they're told and only attempt to weasel their way out with clones after the third lap (it fails, but Kyouji rewards their effort with promises of more laps and the most excruciating training regime in the morning).

After all, Kyouji never really wanted to be a teacher, but damned if he doesn't have some fun with it along the way.

O0o0o0o0O

And that's a wrap. I think I might write some more about their gennin adventures if this goes over okay. I hadn't meant for Izumo to curse like a sailor, but the thought amused me, so it stayed. It's not supposed to be that easy to get out of the binding circles, more on that in a different fic, maybe, but if Kyouji had done it wrong, he might have blown his legs off, and that's only if he was lucky. (Hooray for comma abuse.) I'm not sure what personality type I was going for with Kyouji, but I don't think I mind him. Usually I end up hating my OCs after a while. So tell me if he needs to die sooner than later.


End file.
